I´m hoping you can help me skip a lot of trial and error here:Currently, I am using a Fractal Design define R3.

Inside i have 3 3.5" HDDs and 1 2,5" ssd, the harddrives are placed around the fan airflow in the dual 120mm fan front mountings (as best they can)the ssd however is placed in the middle of one of the fan mountings since i had run out of peripheral placing spaces. Sadly the HDD cage is placed close behind the front fans and solid the entire length up to the 5,25" drive bays.

Graphics card is a HD5850 cooled with Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo Pro. This is, though fairly quiet, dumping hot air inside the case and likely the main heat source in the case.

PSU is Antec Earthwatts 500, taking in air in the front (inside the case) and (of course) exhausting through the rear, placed in the bottom of the case.

Ambient room temp is ~22c inside case seems to report ~25-30c

Fan placements in the case (all 120mm) are: 2 in front, bottom and middle, 1 in bottom right in front of the psu. 1 in the traditional high rear placement.Additionaly i can remove sound proofing plates, 1 on the side and 2 in the roof (middle and rear)This however i suspect will give acoustic drawbacks.

You can probably do fine with just 2 front and 1 rear case fan. Start with that and benchmark your idle and full load temps to provide a baseline. The Nexus and Noctua fans might be the best candidates.

For the most silent operation,Which fans should i use, in what places, and at what speed?

Providing that IMVHO none of the actual parts seems "silent" (I mean, CPU, PSU, VGA, et caetera), to answer your question, IMO: both the Nexus on the Hyper heatsink, the two Noctuas as front intakes, the BeQuiet as rear exhaust; run them at no more than 8-900rpm on load, but I bet 5-600rpm would even suffice, while at idle keep them as low as your headers can drive them.

You can probably do fine with just 2 front and 1 rear case fan. Start with that and benchmark your idle and full load temps to provide a baseline. The Nexus and Noctua fans might be the best candidates.

Thank you!I was thinking along those lines my self, and it´s nice to get a second opinion.Im hoping someone with experience in two or more of these fans can help me rule out the less suited ones (my guess fractal and cooler master) to cut down on "experimenting time" wich is at a premium...

its hard to find relevant comparisons between them, excluding Nexus and BeQuiet! of course wich features in SPCR roundups.

Providing that IMVHO none of the actual parts seems "silent" (I mean, CPU, PSU, VGA, et caetera), to answer your question, IMO: both the Nexus on the Hyper heatsink, the two Noctuas as front intakes, the BeQuiet as rear exhaust; run them at no more than 8-900rpm on load, but I bet 5-600rpm would even suffice, while at idle keep them as low as your headers can drive them.

Thank you for your reply!

I agree with you that this is not a true "silent" build. I¨m merely trying to reduce soundlevels as much as possible on what I have since i cant even afford to buy better fans atm.Much less to buy beter hardware and go full passive witch would be the dream... That said, the same fans, heatsink and psu only ever rose above ambient roomlevel in my old chassis with a 125W TDP CPU and onboard graphics when CPU was at 100% load.

I will definitely use the Silent Wings as exhaust as per your suggestion, it seems reasonable since that should be the most exposed placing, and it seems to be the best one from what i can find on this site.

The Heatsink setup you suggest is the one i have now, But i will replace that with a BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 bundled with two Silent Wings 2 fans that i recently won in a competition along with the third Silent Wings fan (the one available as case fan).This will free up the two Nexus fans as case fans,

So given that, do you think i should go with Noctua or Nexus in the front? Noctua has higer cfm but are louder from what i can see, but maybe static pressure comes in play with the harddrive cages just 1-2 cm behind? I belive Nexus is better then?

So given that, do you think i should go with Noctua or Nexus in the front? Noctua has higer cfm but are louder from what i can see, but maybe static pressure comes in play with the harddrive cages just 1-2 cm behind? I belive Nexus is better then?

A drive cage is not an heatsink or a radiator, so the impendance should not require really an high pressure.

At first glance I would go for the Nexus fans, due to their better sonic signature, but actually YMMV and you have just to try whether you may get a noticeably lower drives temperature, or not (I think you won't gain anything noticeable with the Noctuas, but it's just a very personal guess).

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum